Let This Be Custer's Last 'Last Stand'

By Kevin Abourezk

On June 25, 1876, Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer looked out on a Lakota and Cheyenne village that stretched well into the horizon along the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana and exclaimed to his 750 men: "Hurrah, boys, we've got them!"
The brash general who had earned his rank through distinguished action during the Civil War then led his 12 cavalry companies down the hill toward the massive encampment.
This week, the infamous Indian fighter who died on that hot, dusty prairie in 1876, along with his entire detachment, reared his head again. This time, in the form of a figurine riding a motorcycle found inside McDonald's Happy Meals.
The figurine is the result of a partnership between McDonald's and Twentieth Century Fox, distributor of "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian." The "General Custer" doll represents a figure in the movie that comes to life in the Smithsonian and has adventures alongside Ben Stiller's night watchman character.
But just because a movie distributor decides to give this historical goofball a chance to make his second "last stand" doesn't mean a nationwide restaurant chain should do the same.
And it boggles my mind to even attempt to understand any interpretation of history that would justify creation of a doll that glorifies a man who failed so utterly as a military leader, a merciless Indian fighter who massacred Black Kettle's peaceful, sleeping band of Cheyenne men, women and children in November 1868.
To be sure, America is prone to glorify the murderous actions of its military against Native people. Consider the 23 Medals of Honor presented to soldiers of the 7th Cavalry - yes, the same unit that Custer led into infamy at the Little Bighorn - for massacring more than 300 defenseless Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee, S.D.
Still, Custer? A career soldier who graduated last in his class of 34 from West Point? Who failed to grasp the size of the Indian village along the Little Bighorn, despite seeing the nearly mile-wide trails leading to the village?
Who is famous for being a failure?
The McDonald's toy has inflamed the passions of Indian parents forced to explain to their children the perversion of history being committed inside their Happy Meals.
"I think it's insulting," Bobbie DuBray of Rapid City, S.D., told Native Sun News publisher Tim Giago. "It's like handing out KKK dolls in the south where there are a lot of African Americans."
DuBray, administrative assistant for the Lakota People's Law Project, discovered the doll in his 5-year-old son's Happy Meal.
The doll came with a card explaining Custer's history: "Ever hear of Custer's last stand? It was named after George Armstrong Custer who lead (their spelling) his troops into the battle at Little Big Horn."
Customers to Rapid City McDonald's this week later learned the restaurant no longer was distributing the dolls in the meals.
Let that be Custer's last "last stand."
 

Kevin Abourezk's "Red Clout" columns are available for syndication. Please contact reznet to purchase republishing rights.

Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He writes reznet's "Red Clout" political blog and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. Abourezk was awarded a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2006.